Zhang Dayi And Her Flow Myth: "I Have Never Paid A Bill"

"It can't be called lake blue, it must be called Tiffany blue." Zhang Dayi showed her new nail polish, which she was about to use. This ability to skillfully use various fashion buzzwords is called "web sense" by Zhang Dayi, which is also the key to her creation of popular products.

On August 3, Zhang Dayi attended the Weibo Super Red People's Day as a guest speaker for the first time. She wore a speech dress with a bra and wide leg pants, which was the most voted by Weibo fans a few days ago.

She has grown from Taobao model to a super online celebrity with 11 million fans all the way. She is familiar with the psychology of fans and has been used to making choices based on fans' preferences. She only does "what fans like me to do" and "women like women".

In April of this year, Zhang Dayi led Ruhan Holdings, the "first online celebrity stock", to go public on NASDAQ in the United States, which is very promising. Surprisingly, Ruhan's share price halved on the 5th day of opening. Under the tide of questioning, Zhang Dayi and "Ruhan behind Zhang Dayi" have become more popular in the dispute.

On July 16, Time magazine published the list of "25 Most Influential People on the Internet", and Zhang Dayi was on the list. On the same day, the news that "Zhang Dayi was selected into Time Weekly" attracted more than 10 million readers. Now, Zhang Dayi's two-hour live broadcast can bring her Taobao shop a turnover of nearly 20 million yuan; Last year, on the Double 11, her store was born with a myth that its sales exceeded 100 million yuan within 28 minutes.

In the story of online celebrities becoming rich, Zhang Dayi, who accurately stepped on the first wave of dividends, is regarded as a symbol of success, representing the magic of personal flow realization. Everyone wants to be the next "Zhang Dayi", and the market also expects to copy "Zhang Dayi" in batches.

15 degree elevation

With a black cap, round frame glasses, loose T-shirts and casual pants, Zhang Dayi, 31, is no different from ordinary girls in her daily life.

In the past five years, Zhang Dayi's working status has become more and more year-round, and she has gradually adapted to the role change from Taobao model to company boss.

At seven o'clock in the morning, as soon as she woke up, she would start to reply to the work messages in WeChat, and then deal with the work at home or in the company. In the company, the relatively independent Dayi Business Department has more than 300 employees, responsible for Zhang Dayi's personal daily affairs and the operation of several clothing and beauty shops.

Zhang Dayi's daily work mainly revolves around taking photos and matching money. In a year, she spent almost half of her time in China, usually working to participate in the company's new product selection meeting and determine the product planning for a period of time in the future.

Every time the plan of a node is finalized, Zhang Dayi will fly abroad, go to the factory to finalize the order and participate in the photography of the model of the upcoming new product - although now, Zhang Dayi, who has gradually retired from the background, is less and less seen in the photos as a model, and she will only carry out live broadcast of sales on the two days of launching the new product, sometimes in the company's live studio, sometimes at home.

In order to maintain interaction with fans, Zhang Dayi will show his work scenes or itinerary on Weibo every day. She has 11 million followers of her microblog giant "Zhang Dayi eve", who have given her the nickname of "Aunt" and "Milk Fragrance". In the photo, she usually has a sweet smile and is very friendly. Each of her micro blogs is full of comments praised or concerned by fans.

In the era when the dividend of mobile Internet traffic peaked, Zhang Dayi is well aware of the value of private domain traffic, and improves the liquidity of private domain traffic by constantly maintaining and strengthening the trust relationship. In her opinion, the difference between stars and online celebrities is that fans are closer to online celebrities.

Because of this closer distance, fans can get closer to their idols, more loyal, and easier to listen to the opinions of online celebrities. Zhang Dayi just grasped and made full use of this.

On the day of the bell ringing on NASDAQ, Zhang Dayi released a lottery microblog of 8888 yuan in cash to encourage fans to discuss the topic of "Zhang Dayi's listing". On the same day, this topic hit the microblog hot search.

"Social media is a good user portal." Zhang Dayi told China News Weekly, "In the daily communication, I am closer to my fans, and fans will trust and rely on me more. More often, my relationship with fans is like friends, even family members."

Even in his daily life outside of work, Zhang Dayi can open live broadcast anytime and anywhere. If she wants to broadcast it, any scene can become a live broadcast room. During the live broadcast, she naturally makes friends with her fans. Sometimes she also follows their suggestions to choose clothes or food. Her fans are also happy to "participate" in her life.

"I hope to be a person who can communicate with fans every day," said Zhang Dayi. "When a person who communicates with you every day recommends a product to you, you will easily trust and buy it."

Taobao store "My Favorite Wardrobe", with 10.53 million fans, is Zhang Dayi's earliest and most important clothing store, targeting young women aged 18-25. Her later personal brand BIG EVE, underwear store "milk scented bra", home store "candles sold", discount store "skirt OUTLETS", and cosmetics store "lipstick sold" all originated from this.

By midsummer, the top 10 items listed in the "My Favorite Wardrobe" shop had a unit price of less than 200 yuan, and the monthly sales of the first five clothes were more than 5000, which was generally a youth and leisure clothing style. Zhang Dayi hopes that he can present the image of a big sister next door and establish a closer and trusted relationship with fans.

"Maybe fans look up at stars at 60 degrees, but they look up at online celebrities only at 15 or 30 degrees, which makes them feel closer." Zhang Dayi said, "I hope fans look up to me only at 15 degrees, which is the relationship of trust and liking."

In just five years, Zhang Dayi has been praised by fans as a "shrine" and achieved fame and wealth.

On July 16, 2019, Zhang Dayi was selected into the list of "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" by Time magazine of the United States, further expanding his reputation. In addition, even according to the current market value of Ruhan, Zhang Dayi, who holds 15% of shares, also has personal wealth of more than 250 million yuan. In Shanghai, a silver gray Rolls Royce has become her daily car.

"The person who writes the bill swallows the needle"

In the world of Taobao online stores, Zhang Dayi's online stores have an unshakable position.

Last summer, she cooperated with Disney to launch the Mickey co branded clothing, which broke 30 million yuan in sales within five minutes of opening. Last year, on the Double 11, her core store, "My Delighted Wardrobe", set a record of 28 minute sales of more than 100 million yuan.

Accompanying the brilliant data of carrying goods, there is also the continuous voice of questioning the order swiping.

"I have never swiped a bill. A person who swipes a bill swallows ten thousand needles." Zhang Dayi vowed to China News Weekly, "I know that others may not believe what he said. But I can only say that I have never swiped a bill since I started my career."

The real trick is that Zhang Dayi made full use of Weibo as the traffic portal of Taobao stores at the beginning.

In the early days of store operation, Zhang Dayi, who already has hundreds of thousands of Weibo fans, tried to publish photos of himself wearing new clothes on Weibo, and attached a link to Taobao stores. "At that time, the number of fans was still small, but the conversion rate was particularly high." Zhang Dayi recalled, "The conversion effect of microblogging exceeded expectations. Of course, some people would question scalping, but we really never scalped."

In fact, there is a widespread phenomenon of scalping in Taobao online stores, which has been repeatedly prohibited. A year before the opening of Zhang Dayi's shop, about 17% of the 1.2 million sellers on Taobao had false transactions. The volume of false transactions exceeded 500 million and the transaction volume exceeded 10 billion yuan.

"Almost nine out of ten new stores that have just opened will pay off their orders, and they will stop after they become larger and have a stable customer base." Zhang Dayi said frankly, "So many people don't believe that I don't pay off, but we are really the one who doesn't."

The attempt to use social platforms to guide e-commerce came from Feng Min, the founder of Ruhan. Although Ruhan is called "the company behind Zhang Dayi", its founder Feng Min is the person who really holds the power and is also the person behind the promotion of Zhang Dayi and the incubation of more than 100 online celebrities.

Feng Min, born in 1981, is a serial entrepreneur who has worked in communication and e-commerce. After several business failures, he has accumulated a lot of resources and experience in supply chain, product development and customer management. In 2011, he and his wife Chen Sijia entered the women's clothing industry and established their own brand "Liebeilin" on Taobao. Three years later, the sales of "Rebellion" slowed down, and the couple just started to practice the idea of using models to drive clothing sales. At that time, Zhang Dayi was an exclusive model of the store, with a microblog of 300000 fans.

"When I used microblog, I found that the channel for a new generation of young people to obtain fashion information began to turn to social media." Zhang Dayi recalled that she had proposed to Feng Min at that time that she could try to promote the clothing brand on microblog and personalize it.

One wants traffic, the other wants cash, and they hit it off. In 2014, the two people jointly opened the Taobao store "My Favorite Wardrobe", with Feng Min in charge of the supply chain and Zhang Dayi in charge of marketing. This model is also called: "You are responsible for beauty, and I am responsible for making money to support the family."

One year later, this online store became one of the top women's clothing businesses on Taobao; At the 2016 Taobao Live Festival, Zhang Dayi drove a turnover of 20 million yuan in two hours, creating an e-commerce miracle of live broadcast guiding consumption; On November 11, 2016, Zhang Dayi's online store became the first women's clothing store on Taobao with sales exceeding 100 million yuan; On the day of Double 11 in 2017, Zhang Dayi set a record of 170 million yuan in daily sales.

The influence of online celebrities+the purchasing power of fans have jointly written one story after another.

The explosive ability to carry goods has attracted many imitators, and Feng Min is also aware of the amazing power of "online celebrity carrying goods". In 2017, Ruhan Culture was founded, adding a key business - "online celebrity incubation", which formally incorporated the systematic "online celebrity incubation" into the company's business landscape.

Turn "rubbing heat" into heat

In the face of all kinds of doubts from the outside world, Zhang Dayi is very good at analogy with the cases of various famous brands or celebrities. This method is very effective in responding to queries, but it has also been criticized as "hot".

At present, Zhang Dayi's target consumer group is young women aged 18-25, but she is not worried that her aging will weaken her personal brand.

"For example, if Ms. Chanel founded Chanel, the value of the brand will continue. Why can't my brand be?" Zhang Dayi said that as long as the brand value is high enough, Ruhan will incubate more online celebrities into her brand flow pool in the future, and continue to make the brand go down.

Such remarks have attracted many people to blackmail her. "Someone on the Internet said that I would like to be China's COCO Chanel, which is totally out of context," Zhang Dayi stressed.

After tasting the benefits in the clothing field, Zhang Dayi turned his attention to cosmetics, another key area of concern for his own consumer groups, and continued the idea of "pattern making", that is, to imitate and adjust the production according to the process and ingredients of a benchmarking product.

"I make cosmetics because my fans want me to." Zhang Dayi gave an example. When fans asked her about the color of her lipstick, even though she told her fans with the color number of the brand, some fans still said they would like to use her own lipstick. "The trust and expectation of fans gave me the motivation to make cosmetics."

In February 2018, Zhang Dayi announced on Weibo that he would try to produce skin care products, first of all, he would launch a facial cleanser, and in his description, he compared the self-developed facial cleanser with a facial cleanser of Japanese high-end brand CPB, saying that "I feel that the original CPB is less moist after washing than the new version".

After the microblog was sent out, netizens accused Zhang Dayi of "playing version" CPB to make counterfeit goods. For a while, the news of "Zhang Dayi playing version" CPB quickly fermented on the network, attracting a lot of questions and curses.

Later, Zhang Dayi deleted this microblog and said in a speech: "Making beauty makeup is different from making clothes. You can't do things with the previous set of marketing (clothing companies often use the" version "). The first batch of facial cleansers (public beta) was 5000. We returned the order the day after the dispute happened. After this, many employees were worried and morale was low."

However, this storm did not stop Zhang Dayi's idea of making beauty makeup. The online quarrels continued, and the smoke of gunpowder filled Zhang Dayi's microblog comments. There were fans who were looking forward to trying, passers-by who were skeptical, and opponents who wanted to take the opportunity to discredit.

"Online people are scolding, but the first thing I do when I go back to the company is to call for an extra order." Zhang Dayi told China News Weekly, "I think things are abstract and optimistic, and I believe that popularity can bring sales."

In the nearly four months from the announcement to the launch, Zhang Dayi published a number of microblogs to explain the principle and mode of facial cleanser with pictures and videos. In the production mode of cosmetics OEM, there are two types: ODM and OEM, namely original design manufacturer and OEM. From the perspective of model, Zhang Dayi's model of making cosmetics is commonly known as "OEM" production. In a VLOG released by Zhang Dayi's microblog to visit a co processing factory in Osaka, Japan, it is shown that Zhang Dayi's co processing factory for facial cleanser is called Cosmobeauty, which is the same supplier of Japanese low-cost brand Dachuang cosmetics.

Repeated explanations did not quell the doubts, but the heat of controversy was indeed reflected in the sales volume. On June 1, 2018, Zhang Dayi's facial cleanser was officially put on the shelf, sold 10000 within 5 minutes, and then made up three times.

"Others thought I was doing my own marketing, and they thought I was very good at marketing." Recalling the situation at that time, Zhang Dayi said, "At that time, there were still many people who were not optimistic about my beauty makeup, but I had the determination to do well."

After the popularity of facial cleanser, Zhang Dayi struck while the iron was hot, and successively launched a variety of products such as foundation liquid, eye shadow, mask, lipstick, etc., and said that he had signed international famous suppliers such as Intercos as the cooperative foundry. Nevertheless, many products launched by Zhang Dayi after that still have many similarities with some popular brands, and the sound of "copying" and "playing the version" has never dissipated.

In the "lipstick sold" of Zhang Dayi's cosmetics shop, a black tubular lip glaze ranked fifth in sales, and the lip glaze packaging was the same as that of a Japanese brand, Uchimura Show. Previously, Zhang Dayi also launched a liquid foundation product. He disclosed on Weibo that the concept source was Estee Lauder Double wear liquid foundation, and the proposal originated from the American brand zelens liquid foundation. Finally, the outer package of the finished product was similar to Armani dropper liquid foundation.

In addition, many skin care and cosmetics products launched by Zhang Dayi have been questioned as "fake" brands. Blush is suspected of copying Japanese brand Suqqu, makeup stick is suspected of copying famous makeup brand Bobbi Brown, shower gel is suspected of copying famous fragrance brand Zumarong, lipstick is suspected of copying Armani... There are constant questions about Zhang Dayi's products, and netizens jokingly say: "Zhang Dayi has built an entire shopping mall."

In response to questions about beauty products, Zhang Dayi repeatedly emphasized the professionalism of product formulations and the reliability of suppliers. "I used to think that there was a professional threshold for making cosmetics," Zhang Dayi told China Newsweek. "Later, I found that as long as you focus, there is no threshold for the industry, and there is no threshold for the supply chain."

Create more "Zhang Dayi"

Behind the controversial Zhang Dayi, Ruhan could hardly shake off the doubts of the market.

Ruhan attracted the attention of the market that in November 2016, Alibaba spent 300 million yuan to invest in Ruhan Holdings, a company of Zhang Dayi and Feng Min, making the company's valuation reach 3.13 billion yuan. Before listing on the NEEQ, Ruhan conducted four rounds of financing. The investors include Mr. l Internet Innovation Base, Saifu Fund, Junlian Capital, Yuanjing Venture Capital and Qiming Venture Capital. Alibaba, Jinshi Investment and Zhongding Venture Capital entered the market with a fixed increase of 430 million yuan in the NEEQ.

However, the achievements in the capital market are not ideal. As of August 6, the share price of Ruhan Holding had dropped to US $3.47 per share, 70% lower than the issue price of US $12.5. After delisting from the NEEQ, Ruhan went to the US NASDAQ for listing. After more than four months of listing, Ruhan's revenue performance has increased, but its business model has not yet won the recognition of the capital market.

According to the 2019 annual financial report data, in the 2019 fiscal year, the company's GMV (total transaction volume) increased by 39.9% year-on-year to 2.9 billion yuan, its net income increased by 15.4% year-on-year to 1.1 billion yuan, and its net loss narrowed by 28.4% year-on-year to 74.5 million yuan.

Ruhan attributed this growth to the development of the "platform model", that is, to cultivate a new generation of KOL (key opinion leaders) and realize it by promoting third-party brands and advertising. For example, Han's early training of Zhang Dayi's all-round service model relies more on KOL's personal Weibo, Tiao Yin and other fans. The platform model launched today is to match the corresponding KOL and third-party brands and products to help the third party promote. This is more lightweight, and also allows the company to have more control over KOL.

It is worth noting that Ruhan has exposed the disadvantage that the revenue greatly depends on the head KOL cultivated by the company. The financial report shows that Zhang Dayi, the "chief" KOL of the company, contributed 49.6%, 51.0% and 44.9% of the total GMV in fiscal 2017, 2018 and the first three quarters of fiscal 2019, and the revenue contribution exceeded 50%.

During Ruhan's three-year development, Zhang Dayi not only contributed more than half of the operating income to the parent company, but also created most of the profits. At the same time, although Ruhan has more than 100 online celebrities, the company still relies too much on top online celebrities in terms of liquidity.

In Ruhan's online celebrity system, three top online celebrities, including Zhang Dayi, carry more than 100 million GMV per person every year, and seven waist celebrities carry between 30 million and 100 million GMV per year. According to the financial report, as of December 2018, three top celebrities contributed 55% of GMV, which seems unhealthy to the outside world.

"I don't think it is a bad thing that I or my head account for too much, but I think it is a good brand value continuation phenomenon." Zhang Dayi told China News Weekly that Ruhan set the position of "model room" when he opened his first store to drive the growth of new stores later. "Ruhan's strategy is very clear. Incubation of celebrities is the only way. This also determines that the value of the head must be very high."

However, Feng Min and other senior executives have clearly realized that it is urgent to weaken Ruhan's "Zhang Dayi". The bigger crisis is that the microblog, the only traffic platform that Ruhan used to rely on, is approaching the ceiling of traffic dividends, while Ruhan's layout on new content platforms such as Tiaoyin, Fasthand and Xiaohongshu has just started, and still faces the problem of traffic restriction.

The emphasis on building new online celebrities and transforming content e-commerce can be seen from Ruhan's investment. In fiscal year 2019, sales and marketing expenses of Ruhan were 205 million yuan, up 40.7% year on year. In this regard, Ruhan said that it was mainly due to the increase in the cost of incubation and training of KOL, as well as the increase in investment in content production and related training.

However, due to the excessive marketing investment, although Ruhan GMV increased from 2.045 billion yuan to 2.861 billion yuan in 2019, it still did not get rid of the loss state: in 2019, Ruhan should account for 74.5 million yuan of net loss. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Ruhan wants to create more "Zhang Dayi", but it takes a certain amount of luck, probability and more time.

"Ruhan has an unchanging standard when choosing the training objects - to be the woman that women like." Zhang Dayi told China News Weekly that on this basis, the categories that have performed well in the e-commerce market, such as clothing, beauty makeup, snacks, home furnishing, and general merchandise, are all Ruhan's direction to incubate online celebrities.

"I will definitely retreat behind the scenes in the future. But I believe in the power of our brand and the power of fans." Zhang Dayi said, "In my opinion, Ruhan is not a simple MCN organization, but a fashion brand co creation platform for online celebrities and fans."